It isn’t an urban myth that the day after a 1999 World Cup semifinal loss to France at Twickenham, admissions to Auckland Hospital for acute angina, heart failure and arrhythmia spiked by 60%.
The prevailing national mood before big test matches usually contains a fair helping of angst, as you sense it does now, with the All Blacks about to play England at Eden Park, after edging to a one-point victory in Dunedin.
While not suggesting the match on Saturday night won’t be hard-fought, it’s hard not to feel the All Blacks actually enter the contest with the field tilted their way.
Having to make just one injury-enforced change, with Finlay Christie starting for TJ Perenara at halfback, the All Blacks will run on feeling more familiar with each other. Intense training is fine, but nothing unites a team better than the footy furnace that a close-run test match provides.
The other bonus is that New Zealand fans will make up the bulk of the 47,000 or so spectators who will pack the ground. The Eden Park factor can’t be quantified, but results show it isn’t imaginary.
The impossible dream
Sadly, dealing with England’s suffocating rush defence will again be a factor in the second test.
The Dunedin contest held the crowd’s interest because the score was so close. The actual rugby rarely caught fire because England’s defensive players lived right on the offside line. As in: balanced on it like tightrope walkers.
This is not a Kiwi reversal of the “Richie McCaw’s a cheat” line promulgated in the past by experienced British journalists like the Sunday Times’ Stephen Jones. The best players will always push boundaries.
But if ever there was a prime example of why five, or even 10, metres behind the back foot of the breakdown should be the offside line, the Dunedin game was it. When tacklers can legally edge up to where the back foot of the maul or ruck is, then room for attack is as rare as an outbreak of truth in a Trump speech.
On the other hand, even if a referee and his assistants allow leeway at a 10m offside line, there’s still a step or two of freedom for attackers. Space to entertain the crowd by “running with the ball in his hands”, a phrase that’s so often quoted in stories about Englishman William Webb Ellis inventing the game. I’ve read rugby books since intermediate school, and I’ve seen a line about Ellis “taking the ball in his hands and then kicking the crap out of it”.
Sadly, while northern hemisphere teams like Ireland, France, and England and the bomb squad behemoths from South Africa benefit from bash and crash, the chances of World Rugby making a change the game badly needs look remote.
Wise words only
There were some fears that after seven years of triumph with the Crusaders, and dealing mainly with Christchurch-based media, Scott Robertson might be tripped up by leading questions from overseas journalists.
At the All Blacks team naming press conference in Auckland, there were English media attempts to steer Robertson towards suggesting new English prop Fin Baxter, replacing veteran Joe Marler, might be a weak link for New Zealand to exploit.
Robertson may be a bright-eyed breakdancer, but he’s also a nimble thinker. “Do you feel there are gains there you can make against an inexperienced loosehead [Baxter]?” he was asked by a London rugby writer. Robertson laughed. “You’re good at this, aren’t you? Lining me up again. I love it,” the coach said, adding: “He’s had experience in the [English] Premiership, and he’s got a good future.”
Sir Steve Hansen, when an All Blacks coach, was a press conference maestro. He once suggested to a journalist after a leading question about his opposing Australian coach, Robbie Deans: “Jeez, why don’t you just load the gun and I’ll put it to my head.”
But even Hansen couldn’t have handled the Baxter inquiries better.
Not a second too soon
The furore over Damian McKenzie being denied a kick at goal in 77th minute of the first test in Dunedin for taking too long in his preparations has had the best possible outcome: a shot clock on big screens at all tests in New Zealand from now on.
Having replayed the disallowed McKenzie attempt seven times during the week, I agree with Paul Lewis that McKenzie was dudded by the referee at the death. There were two seconds to go when the ref called the kick off for McKenzie taking more than a minute from when a kick at goal was signalled.
But as if to underline a randomness that a shot clock will hopefully eliminate, a similar number of replays of the successful 53rd-minute McKenzie penalty showed him starting his run-in at the 62-second mark.
A minor hedging of bets
For the first test, the TAB had the All Blacks on $1.17, and England on $4.60. For the Eden Park test the odds are now $1.25 and $3.70. Neither feels like a punt worth risking a cent on you can’t genuinely afford.
